


In My Mind You're Still Here

by lemonypond



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-30
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2018-01-21 08:05:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1543649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemonypond/pseuds/lemonypond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They had survived everything together, but they couldn't survive this. Leo Fitz deals with the loss of his Simmons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In My Mind You're Still Here

**Author's Note:**

> "I poured my heart out...I poured my heart out...it evaporated, see." -Ben Folds
> 
> Deviated from my M.O. just this once.

The last thing Fitz heard was her voice whispering “I don’t want to leave you. I’m so sorry.” Her eyes were far away, but they were filled with tears. She was still holding his hand when the monitor of her vitals went flat. 

She was gone.

 

* * *

 

It began when Simmons dropped her micropipette in the lab. There was no turbulence and Jemma had the steadiest hands he knew.  She knew something was wrong, and he knew she was terrified. She didn’t even have to say a word. The look they shared told him everything he never wanted to hear. The brain scans confirmed it the next day. 

They had survived a Chitauri virus and a Hydra coup, but they couldn’t survive a high grade astrocytoma. 

The one thing that Leo Fitz loved most about his beautiful, brilliant lab partner was betraying her; her brain. Surgery could not remove the tumor completely. The radiation and chemo had made her too weak to work. 

In a month, she was too weak to leave her bed. In two, she was gone.

Fitz had never left her side. Not once.  He read their lab reports to her as she slept and held her in his arms watching Doctor Who when she was awake. He washed her hair and brushed her teeth. He only ever left to use the bathroom. He only cried when she was asleep.

* * *

 

As the machines beeped violently, he tried to scream but nothing came out. He tried to stop crying but the tears flooded down his face, soaking the blanket wrapped around her body. He couldn’t see through the tears and he never wanted to again. The mucus draining in his throat made him cough violently. He couldn’t breathe. He didn’t want to breathe anymore, because she wasn’t breathing anymore. He vomited all over his shirt. Coulson ran to the room and found him crumpled onto the floor still holding her hand, shaking uncontrollably. He put his arms around the young man, and he kicked and screamed, the sound finally returning to his voice. Coulson just held on tighter. Neither knew how long they sat there. Time had stopped. 

Later that night his fists were bloody and bruised from punching everything in their lab. Now it was just his lab. Because his Jemma was gone. Twenty six years old, brightest eyes he’d ever seen-dimmed forever. And then he swore, because his metacarpals were fractured and she wasn’t there to wrap his hands. He could hear her voice in his head scolding him for being so stupid. He broke down again, silent screams and raw eyes, and finally passed out at her workstation.  Coulson and May carried him up to his bunk; tears flowed down their cheeks in silence.  As they placed him on his bed he twisted as if in pain. He cried out “Jemma…Jemma…my love…Jemma…don’t go…I can save you…Jemma no,” in his sleep. Melinda leaned into Coulson’s shoulder, her own heart broken by Fitz’s pain, and sobbed for the first time since Phil’s death. 

Skye cried for days in her bunk; she couldn’t even bear to look at Leo. The next day Melinda May brought him soup, looking more tired than he had ever seen. Coulson sat with him in silence, his own eyes rimmed with red. They had all loved Jemma Simmons, but no one loved her more than Fitz. No one spoke. Their light was gone. They landed in London, and Fitz was with Coulson when they went to the Simmons’ family home. He loved her parents, and he held her mom as she cried for hours. He didn’t cry in front of her. He had to be brave for Jemma. He had to let them grieve as he grieved. 

At the funeral, he sat with her family, next to her father, silent tears still rolling down his cheeks. The team sat in the row behind them. He hadn’t spoken in three days, except in his sleep. In his dreams she was still there; still smiling a thousand watt smile, still laughing at his jokes, still working in their lab side by side. He helped carry the casket along with Coulson and May.  Later that night, he helped carry the flowers back into the house. There was even an arrangement from G.W. , which made his breath catch in his chest. Coulson told him to take all the time he needed; he was welcome to stay on the Bus or take the train to Glasgow. 

Fitz looked up at Coulson, the only father he’d ever really known with glassy eyes. He blinked slowly, then looked off into the distance and said his first conscious words since she died. “It doesn’t matter where I go; she’s not here with me.” 

Coulson fought back tears, knowing nothing he could say would help Fitz. “I know, son, I know.”


End file.
